Q&A: Scott Aukerman

In the world of comedy podcasting, Scott Aukerman is David
Letterman to Marc Maron’s Charlie Rose. Where the latter’s much-praised
WTF deconstructs the craft of comedy through sometimes painfully personal conversations, on Comedy Bang! Bang! (formerly Comedy Death Ray),
Aukerman prefers to put the craft on display—through in-character
interviews, absurd games and random acts of off-the-cuff zaniness. The
most personal he ever gets is asking his bigger-name guests—including
Ben Stiller and Ed Helms—what their bank accounts look like, and that’s
only to see how they squirm out of answering.

In June, a televised version of Comedy Bang! Bang! debuted on IFC. Now, the show is returning to its stage roots with a live tour. WW spoke to Aukerman, a former Mr. Show writer, about the appeal of podcasts, writing jokes for the Looney Tunes gang and, of course, his income.

WW: Why are podcasts so appealing to comedians?

Scott Aukerman: The freedom in it is great. When you come
out and try to be a comedian and write and create shows for yourself,
you run into a lot of resistance. When I first started the show, it was
difficult getting people to come on it, because they were like, “Who’s
listening to this?” And what they’re finding out is that there are
hundreds of thousands of people who listen to these, and you can reach
way more people being really funny on one episode of my show than you
can doing a tour around the country.

Has IFC allowed you to maintain that freedom?

They’ve been incredible. They told me something once: “I’m
never going to argue with you if something is funny or not.” I’m used
to having these conversations of, “No, it is funny. It’s not
funny to you, but it’s funny to other people.” IFC said, “If it’s not
funny to us, we’ll trust you if you say it’s funny.”

You’ve done some punch-up work in the past. What’s the strangest script you’ve been asked to write jokes for?

I was just talking about Looney Tunes: Back in Action
the other day. The one joke I got into the script was when they’re in
Africa on a safari for some reason. An elephant is walking away from the
camera, and Daffy and Bugs are on the elephant with their backs to the
camera. So my joke was, Daffy was behind Brendan Fraser and says, “I
can’t see.” And Bugs Bunny says, “If you think your view is terrible,
that audience is staring at an elephant’s behind.”

You’ve asked a lot of your guests how much money they make. So I have to ask: How much are you bringing in these days?

I’ll do what no one else actually does, which is just be
truthful with you. I don’t make a ton of money at the TV show. And times
in comedy in Hollywood have been a little rough. It’s been less than I
would like, but it’s probably about…$1.4 million per year? So it’s not
that great.